


Like Night And Day

by mulanofchina



Category: Disney - Fandom, Harry Potter - Fandom, My Little Mermaid
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-15
Updated: 2014-03-17
Packaged: 2018-01-15 20:31:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1318225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mulanofchina/pseuds/mulanofchina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>*From a fanfic request* </p>
<p>Genderbend Ariel (dubbed Ari) from The Little Mermaid, a Ravenclaw, makes the acquaintance of Hermione Granger in his fifth year.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

I slouched into the great hall and took my seat with the other fifth-year Ravenclaws.

"Hello, Ari," Luna said loftily. She wasn't a fifth year, but she liked to sit with us. She passed me a plate overflowing with toast, eggs, and sausage. I ducked my head down and tried to make myself as unnoticeable as possible. Maybe, if I didn't look up, she wouldn't notice me. 

There was a thud across the table. I looked up, prepared to greet whoever sat down, and was met with Hermione's red face. "What's your problem, Ari? We were supposed to meet last night to study. You made a commitment to me." 

"Yeah, I know," I said, moving the eggs on my plate around with my fork. Never really liked eggs. "But I had an opprotunity to talk to the new muggle-born first year, and I decided to take it."

She rolled her eyes. "Muggle life isn't all that great. And even if it was, you told me you would be there. We were going to work on that History of Magic paper together, but I had to do it by myself." 

"You can do stuff by yourself," I snapped.

She huffed. "Well, I know _you_ can't! You can't even finish a worksheet without my help!"

A sixth-year next to Hermione shot her a glare. "Could you get back to your table, _Gryffindor_?"

I shook my head at him and turned my attention back to Hermione. "I stayed up all last night finishing that bloody paper! I can do things alone, Hermione."

"I don't even understand why you left to get a _muggle_ book! Muggle things aren't important, especially if you have wizard ones."

"They are to me!" I practically shouted. I shot an apologetic glance to my friends before lowering my voice. "Sorry I couldn't study. But he gave me a book! A normal book. I put it with the rest of my stuff."

"You mean your junk trunk," Hermione said flatly.

"It's not junk!" I snapped. I ran a hand through my fiery red hair."I don't understand why you don't understand."

"That makes no sense," Hermione muttered, putting her books back the way they were before. "Will you just meet me to study tonight? Or will you be too busy talking to muggle-borns?"

"No, I won't meet you to study tonight. If you're going to insult the things I like, I don't want to be around you." I ended the conversation by turning to Luna and talking about what classes she was taking. Hermione gathered up her books with a sweep of her arm and moved to the Gryffindor table. 

Luna watched Hermione's retreating back with a studious eye.

"I think muggle objects are very interesting," Luna stated.

"Thank you, Luna." The argument had left a bad taste in my mouth. The urge to apologize was almost too strong for my pride to swallow. I gripped the underside of the seat and watched as Hermione laughed with Ron and Harry.

***

In the library that evening, I threw my books out onto our usual study table and pulled out my potions book and a quill. After arranging them in their proper places on the table, I checked to make sure no one was watching and tugged a normal pencil out of the front pocket of my bag. I used it to doodle on the corner of my scroll until Hermione arrived.

"What are you doing here?" she quipped, dumping her mountain of books onto the table."I thought you weren't coming." 

"I'm here now," I said quickly, tucking the pencil into the pocket of my robes. "Why? Are you going to send me away?"

There was a moment of silence as Hermione gauged me. Then, she finally asked, "So, what are we staring on first?" I tried not to notice as she tucked a brown strand of hair behind her ear.

"Potions," I answered immediately.

"I was going to do Charms first," she retorted. "I have a meter-long essay that's due next week."

"I have at least an hour's worth of work due in potions. Mine's due tomorrow." I slapped open my potions book and pointedly began on my not-charms work.

"Well _I_ have a paper due in _Charms_." Hermione promptly slapped open her own charms book and dove into her homework. Silence settled over our corner of the library, the only noises being Hermione's quill on her scroll and my pencil tapping on the underside of the table. I honestly couldn't work unless I had someone to talk to, but I was too proud to ask Hermione. My Potions work lay, unfinished, on the table.

An hour later, I finally decided to shatter it by slapping my pencil onto the table. "Look at what I got today," I said. 

She gave it a glance before returning to her homework. "A pencil, Ari?" Hermione asked. "If you had wanted one of those, you could have asked me. I have loads of them because my parents make me take them, even though they know I prefer a quill."

My self-satisfaction at the deal -- a girl had me fork over three sickles for that pencil -- quickly faded away. Why did Hermione have to smush everything? 

I returned to stewing in barely-contained aggravation. My Potions work was still unfinished. There was one question that I simply could not answer. But I didn't want to ask Hermione for help, because then she would have won _again_. Another half hour had passed, and I still hadn't made much headway. I had to do something, or the work wouldn't be done by tomorrow, and then I'd probably get detention again.

"So... how is everything with Ron and Harry?" I started.

"What question do you need help with?" Hermione asked, scribbling furiously. "You haven't written anything in ten minutes."

I sighed. "This one." I circled it in the book lightly with the pencil and shoved it towards her. "I think I started daydreaming in class and forgot what the teacher had said."

"This is why you're failing half of your classes, Ari," she sighed, pulling my scroll towards her. "Just this one. Then you're on your own." I nodded, and watched as she bit the end of her tongue while she tried to solve the question. I rolled the pencil between my fingers. "Done," she said. She passed the scroll back to me and I wrote over her pencil with my quill.

"How are Ron and Harry, really?"

"Well enough. Umbridge is difficult, as usual." Hermione looked around, then leaned forward. Her voice dropped to a whisper. "We actually made a club. We meet in the room of requirement. Come there with me after this?"

"How long is 'after this?'" I asked her.

"In about ten minutes." I looked around.

"I'm in," I told her.


	2. Chapter Two

I struggled to keep up with Hermione as she hurried down the hallway. "Could you consider slowing down just a bit?" I called, panting. My bag felt like it weighed a million pounds, and I regretted checking out two books Hermione had wanted me to look at.

"Not right at this moment," Hermione threw over her shoulder. "It's just around this cor--"

Upon clearing the corner, she stopped dead, turned around, and pressed against the wall. She reached for my hand and pulled me against the wall as well. Her eyes were wide, then narrowed into slits.

"What is it?" I asked, peering over her and around the corner.

"The Inquisitorial Squad. Just Malfoy and Filch, I think, but I heard a girl's voice," Hermione whispered. She wound a hand through my hair and pulled me back against the wall.

"You heard a voice?" I asked. "I didn't hear anything."

"I heard a female voice," she said, cutting her eyes to me. "Be quiet. I'm trying to figure out how we're going to get into the room like this."

I leaned around her and caught a glimpse of Filch and Malfoy gesturing at a large, blank wall. My mind immediately started churning. Hermione leaned around it with me, and we glared at them together. "What do you think?" I asked her.

"Well, they're standing right in front of where we need to be, so we can't go around them. If they catch me, they can use Veritaserum to make me tell the truth about the room, and I don't know how strong I am against that."

"I don't know anything about the room," I said, still peering at the end of the hall. Malfoy was still glaring at the wall. Filch had meandered off down the hall, to do god knows what. "So if I got caught, I wouldn't be able to tell them anything anyways."

Hermione looked up at me, a mix of awe and surprise in her eyes. "I can't let you do that," she said. "Ravenclaw would lose points."

"How the hell are we going to get out of this without someone losing points?" I asked. "Anyways, Ravenclaw is ahead by a large margin right now. Fifty points wouldn't go amiss."

"Do you think that's all they would do?" Hermione whispered. She pulled me back over the edge. "You could get detention. Or expelled."

"What I have in front of me isn't grounds to get expelled. And besides," I said, ruffling in my bag, "if they can't recognize me, they can't charge me." I ran my eyes over Hermione. "I can fit in your robes. Switch with me."

For someone so bright, it took her a minute to catch up. She dropped her books on the ground and shrugged off her outer robe. I did the same, and passed it to her. A minute later, I was a Gryffindor. I reached into my bag and pulled out a black knit cap. "For my hair," I explained. I passed a red knit cap to Hermione, and she shoved her auburn hair underneath it and pulled it low over her brow.

"This isn't going to work," Hermione said. "They'll recognize me for sure. Malfoy probably has my face committed to memory."

"That's why you're not coming," I said. "Stay right here until they're gone," I whispered.

Before Hermione had a chance to object, I strode into the center of the hallway and made my way towards the wall. The noise my shoes made on the floor caused Malfoy to look up.

"Oi, you!" he shouted. Filch reappeared as I looked up. 

Feigning surprise, I turned around and ran straight down the hallway. 

"As a member of the Inquisitorial Squad, I demand you stop this instant!" 

I pulled my hat down around my head and kept running, my black shoes clicking on the floor. I passed the corner where Hermione was hidden and prayed they didn't choose to look around where the hallways intersected.

They didn't. Both were in hot pursuit as I barreled out of the door and into the stairwell.

The stairs were not working in my favor. One moved slowly towards me, but it wasn't going fast enough. I checked behind me, and Malfoy and Filch were no more than ten meters away.

The stairs were three meters away.

They were six meters.

The stairs were two meters.

Malfoy reached out his hand in anticipation of grabbing the back of my shirt.

I leaped from the ledge, onto the top stair and tumbled down the rest. I felt the gentle tug of the robes slipping through Malfoy's fingers. I stumbled across the landing and into the adjoining hall.

In my peripheral vision, I spotted a small door set into the wall. I yanked it open and clattered into a mop, slamming the door behind me. I heard Malfoy's feet clop past, followed shortly by Filch's.

My heart twisted. Where was the girl Hermione was talking about? I leaned outside the door, where the Inquisitorial Squad was nowhere to be seen. I quietly stole outside the door and back up the stairs.

At the end of the hall, Hermione was under Millicent Bulstrode's arm. The hat was still pulled over her face, so she was unrecognizable. It was then that Millicent noticed me. She dropped Hermione to the ground and lumbered in my direction. 

"Come and get it," I said, gesturing to my chest. She followed me like a docile elephant. Hermione scrambled back against the wall and fumbled for her wand.

We had reached the landing for the moving staircases. She was getting closer, closer. She reached out to me to grab my lapels, and I took a step to the side.

Millicent fell on to the moving staircase. Before she could get her bearings, it had already moved on to the next landing. We had at least a minute to get into the room.

I rushed back to Hermione. "We need to get into the room before they come back."

Hermione nodded, just a bit unsettled by the mangling Millicent had dealt, and started pacing in front of the door.

"We don't have time for clever plots!" I hissed.

She crossed the wall for the third time and a door carved itself out of the wall.

"Oh."

Hermione reached for my hand, opened the door, and pulled me inside. I ended up falling on her as we moved through the door together, and I quickly twisted in the air so I hit the ground first.

"Are you alright?" she cried, lifting off of me. Her books thumped onto my chest one by one.

"Yes, I'm fine," I coughed. I reached for Hermione to pull me up off of the ground.

"Thank you, for saving me," she said. "I'm sorry I was cross earlier, at the library." She bent down to retrieve her fallen texts, averting her eyes.

"Don't mention it," I huffed. I looked up. All of the occupants had stopped their work to observe our arrival.

"What?" Hermione asked, shoving volumes into stacks. My eyes trailed to Ron, whose ears were as scarlet as his hair. I gave him a little nod. Fred and George snickered behind him.

"Who's this? And why are you wearing Ravenclaw robes?" Harry asked. He waved his wand at me.

"Ari. He's a friend of mine. And we had to trade robes because there was an altercation with the Inquisitorial Squad outside. Now, shall we get to work?" Hermione set her neatly stacked books in a corner out of the way.

Harry ran his eyes over me, a small frown curling his lip. "Yeah. He can join. Hermione, catch him up." He turned his attention back to the task at hand, which involved Luna Lovegood and the spell, _reducto_.

Hermione offered me a thin-lipped smile. "Welcome to Dumbledore's Army."


	3. Chapter 3

Going to the Room of Requirement became a daily routine. As long as Hermione and I went to the hall early enough, the Inquisitorial Squad wasn’t there. If Filch was there, all Hermione had to do was levitate Mrs. Norris down the hallway.

It was a week or so after Hermione had first brought me to the room when she and Ron had their falling-out.  

“No, Ari, you hold your wand like this.” She grabbed my wand with my hand and adjusted my fingers to hold it correctly

“I can do it,” I snapped. I jerked my hand away and threw her a dirty look. My patience with Hermione’s perfectionism was wearing thin. She had taken it upon herself to tutor me exclusively, for a reason unknown. Most afternoons, she was optimistic and patient. This evening, however, I felt like we were on the same level of annoyance.

 “You’ve attempted it seven times!” Hermione hissed. “Just try it.”

I flicked my wand at the dummy across the room and said, “ _Reducto!”_

A spark of green leaped from the end of my wand and fizzled out as it fell to the floor.

Hermione huffed, then glared at me. “How about you try it by yourself, for a bit? I’m going to help Ron.”

We both looked at Ronald, who was on the other end of the room, flicking his wand at the ceiling as if something would happen.

I sneered. “Fine. I’ll be here.”

She left without a backwards look. I watched her stalk away, trying to swallow the fire in my throat. God, she was insufferable! Not everyone can be as perfect as Hermione Granger.

I turned back to trying to turn the dummy into a pile of dust.

“ _Reducto.”_

Nothing.

“ _Reducto.”_

A blue line of smoke trailed from the end of my wand to the ceiling. Not exactly the aspired outcome.

As I fiddled with the correct way to hold my wand, I heard laughter drift across the room. Ron and Hermione held onto each other shoulders, giggling about something or other. The fire in my chest flared up again and I smothered it with concentration.

Luna Lovegood wandered over. “Hello, Ari,” she said.

“Hello, Luna,” I returned. “If you don’t mind, I’m really busy right now.”

“You’re flicking it too much,” Luna offered. “Just let it drift in your hand, but move it in the same direction.”

I applied Luna’s advice.

“Nothing,” I said, as my wand made a sound like crumbling paper. “This is quite irksome.”

I was almost to the point of storming out the room. I dug my heel into the ground. Not leaving until I got this right.       

“Just keep working on it. It took me a while to master that spell, too.” She drifted away, white-blond hair drifting behind her in a ghostly sheet. “Goodbye, Ari.”

"Goodbye, Luna.”

The laughter drifted from across the room again. I pushed it out of my mind. Not my business, not my problem.

Fred and George were the next to saunter up to me.

“’Ello, Ari,” they said simultaneously. “How’s the spell?”

“Absolutely horrid,” I said, glancing down the tip of my wand. “Nothing is working out for me.”

“We’ve found that it works better if you use a _strong_ emotion to charge the spell,” said Fred. Or maybe it was George. Christ, why didn’t one of them cut their hair differently or something?

“Well, I’ll try to keep that in mind,” I said. “Thank you.”

As they walked away, I heard, “I bet you ten he and Hermione get together in two weeks.”

“Bet you twenty it’s one week,” the other returned.

"Hey," I called after them. "I heard that!"

George and Fred flashed me a devilish smile before returning to the corner of the room with the rest of their year.

I heard Hermione say something about studying later. Ron scoffed and said, “Studying?”

They were so _annoying._

I turned to where they were. Ron leaned against a table that held extra dummy parts, and a few books on defense against the Dark Arts. Hermione was a few feet away, holding up the wall with her shoulder. Perfectly relaxed, perfectly at peace.

It made the anger in my chest flare up more than I could bear. I held up my wand and whispered, “ _Reducto.”_

A shot of light whipped out of the tip of my wand and hit the table. It evaporated in a cloud of dust. Ron fell to the floor in a heap.

A snort escaped my nose as a grin broke across my face, but I quickly wiped it off so no one would see. I quickly made plans to escape the room, but they were interrupted by Ron's reaction.

In the corner, I could hear Fred and George break out into rowdy guffaws. Ron’s face turned as scarlet as my hair as he searched the crowd for the person who dealt out the spell.

The idiot I was, I had neglected to lower my wand.

When his eyes landed on me, his face turned an even darker shade red. It was nearly purple. A look of silent disapproval fell over Hermione’s features.

Harry approached me from the side and said, “I do hope that was an accident,” he said.

“Of course,” I said. “A complete and total accident.”

“You _liar_!” Ron hissed. He stood up from the floor and moved level to my chest. I was at least a few inches taller than him. “You did that on purpose!”

“Why would I do that on purpose?” I asked, feigning innocence.

He leaned forward and glared into my eyes. “You know why.”

"I don’t know what you mean,” I lied. Hermione was still by the wall, her arms crossed over her chest.

Ron put his hands on my chest and shoved me backward. I stumbled into a Hufflepuff, who pushed me back towards Ron. He threw another punch at me, which I narrowly dodged.

Hermione burst between us, shoving Ron back with her elbow. “Just stop! You’re being stupid!”

Ron shot me a glare. “ _He’s_ being stupid!”

“You’re the one who hit him first. It was an accident, Ron! And even if it wasn’t, you didn’t act correctly.”

Ron opened his mouth to protest, but Hermione interrupted with more of her lecture.

I couldn’t believe it. She was siding with me? That was unheard of.

 “—And Ari doesn’t deserve any of this from you. I don’t know what’s gotten into you, but you need to stop and think about what you’re doing.”

Ron’s face fell from purple to maroon. “I-I’m sorry,” he stammered.

Hermione rolled her eyes at him, then reached for my arm. “Let’s go to the library, Ari.”I didn’t know what else to do. By the door, I picked up my bag and followed Hermione out the door.

 “I’m sorry about that,” she said as we hurried down the hall. Thankfully, the Inquisitorial Squad was no where to be seen. “Ron is usually so courteous.”

“It’s fine,” I responded. We descended the stairs, and I held out an arm for her to steady herself upon, since her hands were occupied with the massive stack of books that she seemed to carry with her constantly.

Her hand lingered on mine until she noticed it was still there. She blushed and buried her hand inside her stack of books. “Let’s just get to our common rooms. It’s late.”

“Okay,” I said. “I'll see you tomorrow in the library?"

"Of course," she said. Her heart wasn't in it. She nodded distantly, her eyes focused on something at the other end of the hall.

We parted our separate ways, but she didn’t turn down the right corridor to get to the Gryffindor common room. She turned down the hall in the direction of the library.


End file.
